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Two location-based social services are taking radically different approaches to managing users' check-ins. Loopt has announced a passive service that provides updates without the need to take any action; SCVNGR, meanwhile, requires its users to physically bump their phones together to register a group check-in. "[I]t's more fun than it sounds," promises Jason Kincaid.

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Geosocial check-ins were fun for a while, but social media users now demand more directly useful location-based services, experts say. That has category leaders such as Foursquare and SCVNGR refocusing on niches such as discovery and mobile payments. "Sharing location alone isn't compelling enough on its own, and people are looking for ways to share their personal interests and passions," says Mark Watkins of Telenav.

Location-based games that blend into the real world are being used by marketers large and small to engage consumers, and SCVNGR is helping them do so. The idea is to layer a mobile game element onto the physical world, says Seth Priebatsch, chief technical guru at SCVNGR, which has more than 2,000 clients, including nearly 100 leading brands.

In coming weeks and months, many social-media marketers will be seeking to emulate the success of Wieden's Old Spice campaign. The key to doing so, writes John Bell, is not to copy the stunt directly, but rather to find ways to bring together creatives and social-media strategists early in the process, in order to combine genuine entertainment with a trust-boosting, buzz-worthy social-media campaign.

Marketers who look only at the financial return on their social-media campaigns are missing the bigger picture, writes Augie Ray. To generate a more balanced picture of your campaign's hits and misses, evaluate your marketing from four key perspectives: financial returns, risk-management benefits, increased brand buzz and generation of digital assets. "It is only by recognizing all of the benefits delivered by social media marketing that the complete value of these efforts can be understood," Ray writes.

Foursquare will begin preventing users who are attempting to fraudulently check in at a business from accruing points for those check-ins. Foursquare is now able to check users' claims against the GPS in their phones to confirm their locations.